How the Emmy Drama Race’s Haves and Have-Nots Reflect Hollywood’s Own Class War
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
If HBO’s Succession existed in the Star Wars universe, the Roys would be the Empire. Yes, it’s a pretty labored analogy but one that’s relevant to the outstanding drama series race this year. Succession, the frontrunner, is up against Disney+’s Andor, a Star Wars series that focuses on how its hero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), transforms from someone who’s only out for himself into an activist for a cause that’s greater than just one person.
If you look at them with a lens toward social justice, a number of the dramas in contention can be divided into the haves and have-nots. There’s Succession, of course, which focuses on the richest of the rich — the kind of people who think that if you carry a capacious bag to a party, you are too tacky to exist. To the protagonists of that series, most humans like us are not “real,” a term defined early in the run as applying to only the mighty dealmakers and not to anyone below them. But there are also the wealthy vacationers of another HBO drama contender, The White Lotus, with all their sexual anxieties bubbling up as they enjoy the finest luxury in Sicily.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Adam Blackstone Is a Musical Multihyphenate Who Is His Own Competition
Feinberg Forecast: Updated Emmy Predictions One Week Before Final Voting Closes
On the opposite end of the economic spectrum, you are likely to meet characters in other series who’d absolutely despise any member of the Roy family or might run and hide if they encountered Theo James’ entitled White Lotus bro in the wild. No one is doing well in the dystopian world of HBO’s The Last of Us, filled with rampaging zombies known as Infected, but Pedro Pascal’s Joel lives more off the grid than most. He has distrust of any person in authority, whether they be the government or the rebel organization known as the Fireflies. That’s not too dissimilar a position to where Cassian begins Andor. He’s not yet a rebel in the capital-R sense of the word, but by the first season’s end, he realizes he cannot be a passive bystander to the Empire’s evils.
It would have been impossible for the creators and writers behind these dramas to know exactly what kind of reckoning Hollywood would be going through as their shows were contending for TV’s top prize. But with the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes underway, certain programs take on new meaning in this fraught landscape, their themes magnified by the current state of the industry. Rebellion is in the air right now with strikers arguing for fair pay rising up against what they say are fat cat studio executives whose salaries rival those of the Roys. If you look closely, you can see in the Emmy nominations how these themes were being explored even prior to this summer.
Take Andor, for instance. Though there’s a timeless quality to the sci-fi enterprise — as there is with all Star Wars offerings — its call to stand up against oppressive forces might take on a new meaning for some.
Its relevance is also earned. Whereas most Stars Wars projects before Andor looked at the idea of the villainous Empire in the oblique sense — they are space fascists with a sartorial preference for masks and robes — creator Tony Gilroy’s story made the bad guys a more recognizable entity. The Empire, in his telling, is essentially a corporate power seeking to extend its reach into the galaxy’s governing body.
Because, yes, as previously stated: The Empire, in Andor, is not unlike the Roy family in Succession. The Roys, in the final season of the much-lauded HBO program, not only fight for control of Waystar Royco, the company founded by their domineering father, Logan (Brian Cox); they also play puppet masters during a U.S. presidential election, potentially helping elect a reactionary conservative candidate.
All these shows are tackling similar themes, just from different perspectives. You can argue that the likes of Succession and The White Lotus feed into an audience desire for luxury porn, and occasionally they do, but depiction is crucially not always the same as endorsement. (Although, admittedly, a vacation at a White Lotus outpost does seem rather nice.) Creators Jesse Armstrong and Mike White of Succession and The White Lotus, respectively, employ the super wealthy in order to explore the grand tragedies of humanity while also making the case that privilege is a corrupting force.
In both seasons of White’s series, the writer-director uses the invisible lines between the hotel service workers and the guests to show how the rich think others can be bought and sold. Meanwhile, Armstrong and his fellow writers have put the Roys in a universe that feels almost too real. The Roys are too consumed with their own lives to stop and think how their whims might be affecting those who are lower on the totem pole than they are. Never forget: Kendall Roy is an explicit union buster in the season two episode “Vaulter,” in which he shuts down a media company with the proverbial snap of his fingers. This year even found the Roys meddling in Waystar’s entertainment enterprise, trying to guide production on an upcoming movie.
That doesn’t, however, mean the show is any less appealing for Emmy voters who also support the union effort. Sometimes it’s fun to watch how the other half lives — even if you’re trying to take them down.
This story first appeared in the Aug. 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
